Pristine Angie’s Good Homemaker Adventures at www.d332.com

Friends recently asked me to sit in on a viewing of John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. “Oh it’s real kinky!” They promised. After the first opening fifteen minutes, I posited: “So when does the kink begin?”

Both my parents were schoolteachers. My mother taught at a Catholic convent girlschool, my father, an all-boys institution. My father was a more unconventional instructor, getting in trouble frequently for his daring approach. He attempted to show live spermatozoa to his class under a microscope. Unable to obtain any, he handed a glass to one of the boys and asked him to go off to the bathroom for a round of self-attendance.

When I was eight, my dad took the whole family to see the X-rated uncut version of The Exorcist in Time Square. He said, “Why should you wait ten more years to see this movie?” When I was ten, he took me to the largest magazine store in town and pulled down all the adult magazines from the top shelf. “Take your time and look through them. While all the kids are trying to get their hands on one in the next few years, you can concern yourself with more interesting pursuits.”

Ironically, this “headstart” had jettisoned me so far advanced into orbit, I’ve come back behind everyone else. By the time people were trying to find movies by Seka, Marilyn Chambers, and Linda Lovelace, I was snuggling in bed watching Sean Connery duking it out with Tippi Hedren in Marnie.

Four years in a Women Studies minor, with hordes of feminists yelling and screaming at me to stay away from chauvinistic literature made it exponentially more forbidden, consequently, tenfold more delicious.

I eventually reached the zenith of mind-boggling kink: Conservative Christian marriage advice books from the fifties became more intensely charged than anything Larry Flynt could throw at me. Articles by fifties sociologist Talcott Parsons read as if they were Penthouse forum letters. You know, the ones that always begin with “I always thought Forum letters were fake until….” It was not uncommon for a parental intercession to include an unannounced mattress yank, resulting in shocked whispers when the underlying contraband was exposed: “Ladies Home Journal?! Redbook! Collier’s!? Pristine, why didn’t you come to us sooner?”

Here’s one of Parsons’s I came upon that made me swoon:

A mature woman can love, sexually, only a man who takes his full place in the masculine world, above all its occupational aspect, and who takes responsibility for a family, conversely, a mature man can only love a woman who is really adult, a full wife to him and a mother to his children, and an adequate ‘person’ in her extrafamilial roles.

And this one from a fascinating Mormon advice author:

A man wants a woman who will place him at the top of her priority list, not second, but first. He wants to be the kingpin around which all other activities of her life revolve. He doesn’t want to be the background music to her other interests and dreams. This desire is not necessarily a conscious one, but an inner need which surfaces violently when not adequately met….”

(note: my concept of an egalitarian society, one aimed for by some feminists and women studies majors, is a place where equal choices are available to both genders. This doesn’t mean that what is deemed as ‘the best choice’ by a self-appointed few needs to be sheepishly followed by all. It is true that all women should have equal pay, equal opportunities to advance in the career of their choice, and the right to decide what goes on inside their bodies. It is erroneous however, to believe that all women should pursue only the choices that successful men pursue. The freedom of choice means the freedom to decide. A mother who stays at home should be as valid and valuable to the women’s rights movement as a high ranking CEO who made the Forbes 100. To demand otherwise would be to fall into the trap of patriachal facism that feminists have so long wagged their fingers at.)

My father was somewhat handy (although he wasn’t one to fix everything in lieu of taking it to a professional). I guess he would be closer to a Mr. Give-It-A-Go-Before-Going-To-The-Mechanic. After he passed away, I confess the latent image of his handiness must have enlarged a little over the course of eroding memory. Still, I feel a void now and then, when a man isn’t around the house to get at that mysterious realm of nuts and bolts that belong to the world of hairy arms on adjustable wrenches.Whenever we call a pro in these days, it’s positively a thrill for me. I always follow them to the trouble spot and explain what is suppose to happen. “Well, this thingamabob doesn’t seem to want to get started, when that wingding comes on. So I press that widget that turns a scary flame, but it doesn’t want to cooperate….” And inevitably, Mr. Pro will always say “Oh well, here’s what’s causing the problem you see: It’s the-”

And from that moment, always that moment, I blank out and swoon into dizzying hot flashes of 1950 housewifedom. Just to be so helpless with that misbehaving dryer in the laundry room of my little home, and to have a man come in to my life and tell me exactly what is wrong and proceed to fix it.

There’s nothing that puts me in a trance faster than to have a stranger expert take care of my problems. It must be no secret by now that I like a man in charge. However, to have that soothing knowledge that a dependable man is around, a man whom I can rely and lean on, a man who will come through, is much more satisfying than any flowery Harlequin novels promises to be.

Another moment came when I brought my wristwatch to a local department store to get fixed. It turned out to be nothing more than a battery change. But to have a pleasant man in a suit smile and say, “All it needs is a new battery, we’ll take care of it. Have a seat Miss.”

Oh, what unmatched sensation to have a man come to my rescue in my times of domestic distress! I daresay it’s better than…

Two dozen chocolates with a glass of Chateau Lafitte-Rothschild, and a twelve-setting showerhead!

This week, I am about to launch into my favorite obsession. The Idealized Wife of the Fabulous Fifties. But before I do, a mandatory disclaimer, which I highly advise you to read.

I consider myself an avid devotee of the clear-cut boundaries between the sexes in the 1950s. Certainly the whole notion of the “white picket fence, domesticated stay-at-home housewife” is a common verse among the transgendered registry, where men are expected to be most manly and women get to be most womanly.

Despite my ululations about the fifties woman however, I need to set something straight: The docility of the compliant wife from the Levittown era continues to be viewed as a vestige from bygone days, accessible in modern times through the anachronistic submissive Asian mail-order bride (or any variations, including the wide-eyed exchange university student often found holding hands in the streets of NYU, eagerly begging to assimilate and be accepted.) It does take two to tango.

The fact that I am Asian therefore, does complicate matters a bit when it comes to my fetishization of the fifties . The stereotype of the Mail-Order Bride from third world Asian countries, fresh off-the-boat, always being led by the benevolent hand of the conquerer boyfriend, eagerly waiting to be civilized from a world more unimaginable than that of a cannibalistic savage: a life of knockoff Burberry umbrellas and replica Louis Vuitton bags, is the image that is evoked when my mind is actually occupied with Helen B. Andelin books and dry-pressing Ward’s pants. These obsequious creatures often give the mistaken impression that all Asian girls are compliant, docile, and ready to obey the master or risk her village being bombed into submission.

However, once you stop and consider that this is also the culture that gave rise to another stereotype: The Dragon Lady, you begin to piece together just how much wool is being pulled over your eyes. If anything, these “docile, compliant, mail order brides” are anything but what they appear to be. They are hardcore emotional survivalists playing a high-stakes game (their triumphant citizenship in the gold-paved streets of Tom Cruise, or dumped in a foreign land with no connection, relatives or means to get by if the guy should give her the boot).

Take a moment to think and ask yourself this: How many of us can actually get up and leave all our loved ones, friends, jobs, possibly nation of domicile (maybe permanently), comfort and safety of our homes to go to a faraway place where we are without language, job, or money? Well, these so-perceived fragile Geisha brides do it on a daily basis. They have given up family, friends, lovers, and a safe, predictable life to come here, and they’re going to do all they can to outsmart the “dominant” white man at every single intersection of the immense labyrinth they have spent years plotting and scheming inside their minds. They may say yes, but behind that obeisant smile, there’s enough number-crunching to put a supercomputer out to pasture. Every cent squirreled away is every cent sent home (oh you’ve never heard the oft-uttered, “Awwwww, this is sooo EXPENSIVE?), every day to that citizenship is one step farther out the door to the next opportunity, or man.

Now THAT surely sounds rather far from the cheery, supportive wife of the Populuxe era does it not?

No, I’m not sure I can even go anywhere near that level of sportsmanship or craft. One has to be an emotional android to put on that charade for years while being acutely focused on a secret goal. I’m out of my league, I’m afraid.

Unlike these girls who have the agenda of survival, my interest in the idealized fifties of femininity (aside from the fabulous fitted suit outfits) is one of pure leisure. It’s a creative pursuit, born entirely out of freewill, to reconstruct something that never was.

After being in the States for thirty years, the only thing that holds any allure about Americana is the decade my art teacher once called “The Zenith of American history.” Machinery was at its highest quality of production, the post-war era bought a boom in economy, there was the highest percentage of educated people in suburbia, fashion was at it’s most optimistic, Audrey Hepburn glided across the screen, Doris Day sang a tune with a wink, and the wife was always sending the husband off to work with a kiss and a wave…then a martini on the doorstep at the end of the day.

If I wanted a man I can be as docile and as submissive as a traditional Asian wife, I’d only allow myself that privilege with a Japanese husband.

So plop an olive in that martini, kick back with the fuzzy slippers, and enjoy the next few entries. But at the same time, do remember: When you get those postal-husband eyes and ask me to hold your hands in the street, and meet for dinner at the local Vietnamese restaurant you will get whacked faster than you can say Lucy Liu, and you will be wearing concrete slippers on the bottom of the East River after I tupperware-cap your buns with a 9.

As a student in classic feminist studies pre-Grrrl era, I am torn between sides when it comes to the question of whether the Trans* girl should split the bill when out about town with the man friend. One side of me acknowledges independence and the tacit agreement that paying one’s own way means no transaction has taken place. At the same time, the opposing side can barely contain voicing the arduous work that goes behind the scene of being trans.

It’s often been sulkingly admitted by cynical, grouchy old men that prostitution is alive and well in the mating of the sexes. If the man bought his girlfriend a beautiful diamond ring, she is expected to show gratification, appreciation, and loyalty. A transaction is understood to have taken place and results are expected.

I’ll admit that it’s quite glamorous when a girl can buy herself that diamond ring she’s always wanted. I’m sure the cynical guy would love it too. But where is the romance? Where is the happy, go-lucky fresh-as-first-time, devil-may-care, joie-de-vivre of falling in love? (In my opinion, the poshest ring remains the one given to Audrey Hepburn by George Peppard in Breakfast At Tiffany’s: The one from a 25 cent Cracker Jack box.) That’s romance!

Many will assume that sex is the currency being exchanged, after all, let us remember that a girl who gives it away is seen as something less flattering than a boy who gives it away. The former is looked down upon in our society while the latter is revered. So a traditional girl naturally protects her assets the way a man does. When she does give herself, it is the equivalent worth of giving that which makes her valuable.

That is why the world’s oldest profession continues to be so, and man continue to fetishize trading their money for women’s bodies.

A man, by traditional socialized hierarchy has a greater mobility in moving up in his career, which will lead to higher financial gain. Today, as the modern woman inches slowly pass the glass ceiling towards financially egalitarian grounds, she has dispensed with the notion of the traditional woman.

That’s why the grouchy guy, though happy that he can now hold on to his loot, has a new complain to gripe about. “Why are the women of today so butchy and bossy?”

My guess is that they got tired of waiting around for that diamond ring so they up and got together the means to buy one for themselves.

An obvious example that clearly illustrates the difference between a man’s worth versus a woman’s worth occurs when men (whose value is based on the wealth they spread) get into a dress and rush to play the fantasy role of the slut. They may look like a girl on the surface, but in their mind, they’re still passing their bodies around like money in order to validate their worth and compete against the next trans* girl.

Truth be told, a man in full should never let on that he is loathed (pronounced “C-h-e-a-p“) to take care of his girl. What that tells the world is that he’s been played by a gold-digger one too many times, and that he has not made the more prudent choices in his life thus far.

Now, we take up trans* considerations. If one argues that paying is a form of exchange for services rendered, then consider this: Every trans person does twice the amount of everything an average person does just to make it through the day. They have to work twice as hard to find a job, make twice the effort to get medical and financial aid, shave twice as often, go to twice as many facial hair removals, shop twice as hard for the right sizes, put on twice as much concealer, have twice as much courage to get out the door, maintain twice the wardrobe, and manage two lives….and that’s just in order to not stand out.

To stand out- in a good way -she has to do more work on top of that.*

And where is the man during all this time? Throwing on a pair of boxers, cracking open a beer, and deciding whether to leave that five o’clock shadow on to give his huskiness more presence.

So guys, when you next take that trans* girl out, don’t nickel-and-dime your way through the night. Truth be told, twice as many girl-hours have already been spent by the conscientious trans*girl before you even meet.

Be a gentleman and dazzle us that you are a man in two worlds: One is sensitive and the other, in charge. When the bill comes, smile and say, “I’ll take care of it.”

And if she’s running up the tab just to get a free ride off of you: Exit through the kitchen and dump her. No one is worth becoming a grouchy old penny-pincher over!

*I am no authority on the matter of passing, as my proclivities naturally lean towards standing out in a wrong way.

Meredith Michaels-BeerBaum’s websiteAfter not turning on broadcast television for almost ten months, I decided to give channel surfing a whirl last night. What a pleasant surprise when I saw the broadcast of the only sporting event I will attend as a spectator: The World Cup Final Las Vegas. I have always been interested in dressage and showjumping. (Eventing and steeplechase, I can do without). I once took one week off of work to attend the National Horse Show, which seems to be bouncing between Madison Square Garden and Rutherford. I even met my heroine, Mary Chapot.

New Jersey is, after all, the home for the United States Equestrian Team. Chapot farms is a few towns away. I saw both Christopher Reeve (with very little skill) and Joan Lunden ride at Hamilton Farms. At the time, the most promising and insanely fast rider was a teenager named Laura Chapot.

Laura Chapot takes Palm Beach 2007 Nutrena XTN First Place.

It has often been said that US riders have an unfair advantage because most riders from other countries cannot justify the cost of transporting their horse over for a competition. I think as the stakes get higher, and foreign riders start showing up, the competition will certainly get more lively. Vegas was a good example. Only one US rider even made it near the short list of the finals. And he even got dispatched with little haste.